Accursed Fate
by DezoPenguin
Summary: Mathias, Lord Cronqvist, believes that under his care his wife Elisabetha may recover from her illness, but fate will set his footsteps on another path.
1. Chapter 1

"His lordship is right this way, Sir Knight," Magda explained. As a lady-in-waiting to Lord Cronqvist's wife, Elisabetha, it often fell to her to receive guests when the master and his chatelaine were absent or unavailable. "May I offer you refreshment, though, a cup of wine at the least after your journey?"

Sir Bogdan, indeed did show evidence of a hard ride, his armor and surcoat stained by travel dust and his bearded face streaked with grime and perspiration. Nonetheless, he continued to wave aside all Magda's attempts to be a hospitable hostess.

"I am sorry, but this cannot wait a moment longer than is necessary, not even for so small a thing as that." The knight's voice was deep and powerful, which suited the huge, bearlike man to perfection. Magda found it faintly repulsive; like the animal stink brought on by Bogdan's hard ride to Castle Cronqvist it made her think of him as being more beast than man.

"As you wish, Sir Bogdan." She led him down the narrow passage to the garden that lay in the hub of the castle. At least, she reflected, he was decently mannered; others in his position could be--and had been--needlessly curt and insulting to her. Physically, however, he nauseated Magda. She wondered if Bogdan had a wife, and if she was as repelled as Magda would have been at being clasped in those animal-like arms.

Mathias, Lord Cronqvist, was a very different sort of man. As they entered the garden the sight of him took Magda's breath away as it always did. He was tall and lean with the beauty of a fallen angel, his long, dark hair flowing unrestrained past his shoulders and framing a face lovely enough to be a maiden's were it not for the compelling power of the eyes beneath the sharply arched brows. He stood by a low stone bench upon which sat a pale blonde, her hand in his. Some would consider the lady Elisabetha fair, even beautiful, but next to her husband she looked to be but a colorless imitation of true beauty. Yet Mathias doted upon the sickly wench with a dedication that bordered on the obsessive. Unlike other noblemen, he never so much as looked at another woman.

At times Magda believed she could hate him for that.

-X X X-

In truth, Mathias was not actually unaware of the attention he received from the fair sex. He merely dismissed it as irrelevant, the same way he dismissed the idiotic assumption of many men that he was somehow weak in body and mind because he was pleasing to look at.

Elisabetha understood this. She knew appearances were only that. She'd won his interest by not once mentioning his face or form during their courtship; she'd won his heart by her sweetness, kindness, and acuity of thought. What he'd do without her, he did not know.

He feared, however, that he would soon learn. She was ill, quite grievously so. The roses had faded from her pallid cheeks, and she tired easily, especially at night when the son's warmth was denied her, for like a flower she seemed to draw strength from its light and heat.

Still, there was reason to hope.

"Truly, my love, I do feel stronger," she reassured him. "I hardly think a turn about the garden shall do me harm. Indeed, it shall be good to be out in the open air and smell the flowers as they grow."

She did seem to have enjoyed herself--her pleasure was open and obvious. At the end she'd begun to feel a bit faint, and Mathias had swiftly urged her to sit and rest a while, but the episode passed quickly, in but a minute or two.

"You see, Mathias?" she said happily. "I am much improved. The elixir you prepare for me is doing its work well."

He shook his head.

"Hardly the _elixir vitae_, my dear. It is merely a Saracen medicine, with nothing alchemical about it. A Byzantine acquaintance of mine brought the recipe back from the Holy Land."

"Is their science truly so much more advanced than ours?"

Mathias could not help but chuckle dryly.

"Consider, my love, that with the exception of Father Karel, we two are the sole literate people in this castle. In chemistry, mathematics, logic, rhetoric, astronomy--all the natural sciences--they far surpass European learning. This includes, of course, medicine. And to think that we are the inheritors of the glory that was Rome."

Elisabetha shook her head sadly.

"I had thought we were a learned race."

"Learned in the ways of God, perhaps. But as we lift our eyes to Heaven, we let wane our attention to the world around us."

There was bitterness in his voice, the bitterness of an intellectual in a world that respected only faith and valor. It was not until he had been able to turn his intellect to the arts of war and the glory of their knightly company that Mathias had won a measure of respect. As the master tactician, it was his strategies that had led to the company's unblemished record in battle, when those strategies were carried out under the leadership of Leon, Baron Belmont.

"Perhaps we should do something, Mathias," Elisabetha said. "I am sure there are many within our lands who have been gifted with minds that crave learning but can find none. A way could be found to educate them, to prepare them for something better in life."

His first response was scornful; for his part Mathias saw no reason to keep the fools from stewing in the juice of their own ignorance and superstition. He did not give voice to that sentiment, however, for the pain he knew it would cause Elisabetha. And indeed, perhaps she was right. What would his life have been like had he not been born heir to a noble house, where he at least had the opportunity to feed his mind what it craved?

"Perhaps we should, at that," he said, and took her frail hand between his.

"Pardon me, Lord Cronqvist," a voice cut into the peace of their time together, "but you have a visitor on a most urgent errand."

It was the girl Magda, a distant cousin of Elisabetha's who acted as his wife's lady-in-waiting. Mathias was not fond of the brunette, who seemed entirely _too_ fond of _him_ in turn, so he ignored her as best he could. Had Elisabetha not objected, he'd have sent Magda back to her family, but this would have meant disgrace and an end to any chance of a good marriage for the girl and so his wife's soft heart had won out.

There were times, Mathias thought, that Elisabetha's spirit was a shade _too_ good. To refuse to betray a woman who had eyes for her own husband...there was such a thing as taking Christian forgiveness too far.

A moment later, Mathias realized that he'd managed to do the well-nigh impossible: to overlook the massive form of Sir Bogdan coming up behind Magda.

"Sir Bogdan, you've clearly had a hard journey. What brings you to my home with such haste?"

"The king's command, my lord. The heretics have arisen again and must be stamped out."

_The Archbishop's command, then,_ Mathias thought.

"Surely His Majesty does not need an elite company to suppress some village rabble fallen under the sway of some preacher whose theological arcana they barely understand?"

"It's not so simple as that, my lord. Whether through naked ambition or the spell of some fiend"--Bogdan's scornful tone and curled lip made it clear he believed the former explanation--"the knight of the region, Sir Ferenc, has adopted the ways of Albigensianism and offered the heretics the protection of his men-at-arms."

"Treasonous dog," Mathias growled, quickly analyzing the political factors. "If he can hold out another six weeks, winter will be upon us. By the time the snows melt he'll have had time to sway at least two or three of his disaffected neighbors to his side. Heretics will swell his ranks with fanatical hopes of defeating the Church. By spring His Majesty will have a full-blown rebellion to cope with."

Elisabetha gasped in shock.

"Oh, no. Mathias--"

"It's a possible scenario, nothing more."

"I'd say it's just what His Majesty fears," Bogdan put in. "That is why we are to assemble and crush out the revolt before it has a chance to take root, for God and King alike."

Mathias nodded.

"Very well. I shall be ready to join the company in one week," he declared, judging that by that time Elisabetha should be well on the road to recovery.

"My lord Cronqvist," Bogdan said apologetically, "that will not be acceptable. His Majesty's command was that the company is to assemble immediately. As you said, my lord, time is of the essence."

"Sir Bogdan, my wife is only beginning to recover from a grave illness." He looked down tenderly at her. "I must stay and see to her care a bit longer."

"My lord, I regret the necessity, but we cannot spare your presence."

Mathias snorted derisively.

"Oh, please. You know as well as I do that Leon is quite capable of leading the company to victory without me. It's him they--we--follow. It is his skills and leadership that carry the day."

"Maybe so. Perhaps we would still crush Sir Ferenc before winter without your presence. Consider, though, how many knights and footmen will die in the nooks and crannies of those hills without your orchestration of the campaign to lure the heretics onto ground to our advantage."

Sir Bogdan was no fool. Baron Belmont might be able to ride into Hell and take on the Archfiend himself, but he simply did not have the chess-master's knack for seizing the tactical advantage. Though, to be fair, Leon was well aware of that weakness within himself, which was one reason he worked so well with Mathias; the two men's abilities complemented each other perfectly and they each trusted the other to fulfill his part.

Bogdan was right. Without Mathias's presence, men would die.

Yet what were their lives next to Elisabetha's?

"We'll speak of this more on the morrow," he declared. "The sun will be gone soon, and neither one of us can be expected to press on until morning. I can at least offer you the hospitality of my home and a decent night's rest. Magda, if you would make certain a room is prepared for Sir Bogdan and a place set for him at the table when we dine?"

"Of course, my lord, " she said with a curtsey that dipped a bit too low.

Bogdan met Mathias's gaze, as if he was intent upon challenging the lord further, but he held his tongue. With a stiff nod, he turned and followed Magda from the garden. By no means was it over, Mathias knew; the knight would surely press the point at or following supper rather than wait until the next day.

"Is he right, Mathias?" Elisabetha asked. "If you tarry, will good men die in battle?"

"Let us not talk of it, my love," he said, sitting down beside her. "War is a brutal and stupid business at its best, and you should not have to be troubled by it."

"I am not some innocent child who needs to be protected," she chided.

"No, not a child," he agreed, "but as for protection, that is something I have sworn to give you. I would give my soul to see you safe and happy."

A chill breeze swirled just then through the garden, as if blown by the lips of some mocking spirit, causing fallen, dried leaves to rattle against stone walls in the corners. Elisabetha gasped as the wind washed over the couple, but not from the cold.

"Mathias, don't say that, not even in jest!"

It had not, he reflected, been a jest, but he nodded in assent. There was no point in upsetting her. Instead, he slipped an arm around Elisabetha's shoulders and they watched the sun set together, her head pillowed against his chest while he gently stroked her hair.


	2. Chapter 2

As Mathias had expected, Sir Bogdan was ready to renew his assault following supper, but it was not he who stepped forth personally to address the subject. The knight had obviously made use of the intervening hours to consult Father Karel, the castle chaplain and Mathias's confessor. It was the white-bearded priest who took up the charge.

"Your duty in thus is clear, my lord," he sermonized boldly, "both as a subject of the King and as a true son of the Church. It is not merely the vows of political fealty that call to you but service to God."

"And did I not make vows before God when I entered into the sacrament of marriage?" Mathias asked.

"Do you dare mock the Lord?" Karel thundered.

_No; I mock you,_ Mathias thought, turning his back and walking to the sideboard so Karel could not see his smile. To offer an excuse, he poured himself a cup of wine, watching the liquid flow, the color of old blood, into the goblet.

Karel was fiercely proud of the fact that he came from peasant stock, one reason Mathias had chosen to receive the priest in his private study. The luxuriant tapestries, the ornaments of gold, and perhaps above all the bookshelves piled with manuscripts, bound volumes, maps, and scroll-cases were all trappings of wealth and power that made the older man uncomfortable.

"My wife is gravely ill," Mathias insisted.

"Yet through the grace of God she is recovering."

Mathias's arched brows rose even higher at the remark.

"What do you mean by that?"

"Surely, you cannot fail to see the parallel, Lord Cronqvist? We are all in God's hands. He has shown you the glory of His mercy out of His love for His children and not in some merchant's bargain as are the devil's ways. Now, would you abandon your sword duty to Him?"

"Father Karel--" Mathias began, but there was no way to easily rein in the old man once he had started in on a harangue.

"The Albigensian heresy is a blot upon our Christian faith! Those who follow its tainted lures are abandoning their souls to the Unholy! It is a plague-spot on our world that must be struck out. Sir Bogdan informs me that one of your peers has given his soul to the heretics in the hope of gaining political power, and in turn will permit them to spread and thrive in his lands!"

"Those are," Mathias granted with a nod, "the known facts."

"Then your duty is clear! You must ride forth on the morrow to join your company. These heretics and rebels must not be allowed to spread, but needs be brought to heel _now_ for the glory of God and King alike!"

His words had scant effect upon Mathias in and of themselves; there was little in them to appeal to the nobleman's reason or emotion. That had never been Father Karel's strength in dialogue with Mathias, though. It was not brilliant rhetoric or the powers of logic that lent the priest a power of persuasion, but his faith. What was undeniable was his belief in what he said, an absolute, unshakable purity of purpose. His faith was so strong that it impressed the listener with the suggestion that his beliefs had to be worthy because they inspired such wholehearted devotion. Circular logic, Mathias told himself, but the effect was still undeniable.

"He's right, my lord," Bogdan added his voice to the priest's. "If you do not ride forth with us, you betray all you hold dear."

_All but the dearest of all._

Angered by the thought, he spun to face the knight.

"Sir Bogdan, I am only asking for one week's delay!"

"If I were the King, I might grant it. After all, the future of your house is a matter of import for him. I am not in that position, though, and you know what His Majesty would say if you went against his instructions."

That was a point to be considered. Like many monarchs, the King was jealous of his authority. He could be magnanimous if his favor was properly requested, but could not bear to be crossed. Nor could the company wait a week for him on its own accord. Leon, Mathias believed, would probably do so out of friendship, offering some excuse about military necessity if it was in his own hands, but there were many officers in the company, men who would be champing at the bit to do God's work and who would brook no delay.

They were putting him in an impossible position.

"Lord Cronqvist, you cannot refuse God's will," Karel urged.

"No," he sighed bitterly, "I cannot. I will join you in returning to the company on the morrow, Sir Bogdan."

His capitulation, however, did not mean that he would just abandon Elisabetha to fate's mercies. When the two men left after accepting his assurances, Mathias did not rejoin his wife. Instead, he went to the castle's west tower, and once alone he turned a certain iron torch-sconce first one-quarter turn counterclockwise, then a full turn and a quarter clockwise. A section of the stone-flagged floor sank into the darkness with a dull grinding noise. Mathias descended, and operated another switch to close the door.

Generations ago, the hidden room had been merely part of the castle dungeons. Mathias's great-grandfather, though, had had the connecting passage bricked up and the staircase apparently so but instead creating a door. The result was to create a bolthole for private research in areas not favored by society. Elisabetha had hinted at it in the garden, for she of course knew the general truth, but even she was unaware of the specifics.

Alchemy was still a fledgling art, Mathias reflected as he descended the stairs. Much had been lost since the pagan years, for the more fanatical of the Church's adherents saw such natural science, to say nothing of the magical aspects, as nothing more than witchcraft. The burning of the great library at Alexandria had been Christianity's greatest blow against such ancient knowledge; the present alchemists had been forced to draw what arts they could from pagan cult survivals, superstition, and knowledge gleaned through trade with Saracen lands and beyond. Painstaking experimentation was required to cull the wheat from the chaff. The Philosopher's Stone, which transmuted all materials, and the Elixir of Life were the ultimate goals of alchemy. Mathias was much more interested in the latter.

Set in the wall was an iron vault, additional protection for the most priceless of treasures in case the laboratory was ever breached. Mathias turned the key in the lock, heard the deep clunk of bolts falling into place, and opened the door. A baleful red light spilled across him as he did so, and Mathias shuddered reflexively.

His grandfather's work, the Crimson Stone, had come about as a failed attempt to create the Philosopher's Stone. In truth, its function was closer to the Elixir, for it promised eternal life of a kind, and great power as well, but at a hellish price.

Gingerly, Mathias reached into the safe and removed the thick tome that lay next to the Crimson Stone's case. These were the alchemical records of four generations of Cronqvists, the secrets of chemistry and natural magic once handed down orally but now codified. With relief he swung the vault shut again, sealing away the bloody glow. He set the book down on the worktable and lit the lamps from his candle.

If he was going to be there to oversee the process, to be alert for changes, Mathias would have trusted to the medication his Crusader comrades had brought back. Since that was not possible, though, he felt that he had to take the next step. He had to be sure. He could take no chances with Elisabetha's health.

-X X X-

"You miss him, do you not, my lady?" Magda asked.

"Am I so obvious?" Elisabetha replied with a faint smile.

"Well, you have been attempting to read for well over an hour now, but you have scarcely finished a page. Instead, you stop every few moments to gaze out the window." The view from the high tower bedroom shared by Lord and Lady Cronqvist was spectacular. Not by coincidence, it also overlooked the road, the only safe approach to the castle.

"This morning," Elisabetha admitted, "I stood here and watched Mathias, Sir Bogdan, and their escort ride away until they were gone beyond the mountains, just as if I was a silly maiden in a troubador's romance." She sighed and continued, "He is my life, Magda. I do not know what I should do without him."

"Take heart, my lady," Magda said. "The heretics shall not strike him down." Then, because she, too, required the reassurance, she recited aloud, "Lord Cronqvist is a great warrior in his own right, able to deal with any mischance. With knights such as Baron Belmont at his side, he cannot fail to return to us."

_It should be "us," but he has eyes only for you._

"You are right, Magda. I mustn't worry," Elisabetha said. "Indeed, if I fret so, I shall only make myself ill again. Mathias rides into battle, and yet he has more to fear for my sake than I do for his. I must take care of myself for him."

With an almost furtive look in her eyes, she glanced out at the setting sun, then back to Magda.

"I shall retire early tonight, Magda. I shan't need you until tomorrow."

It was unmistakably a dismissal and cousin or not Elisabetha was still the chatelaine of the castle. Magda gathered her needlework and rose.

"Then I shall bid you good night, my lady."

Magda left, but the glint in her cousin's eyes made her curious, simply because it was so unlike her. Secrets were not Elisabetha's stock in trade and never had been; she was open and innocent to a fault. Magda closed the door behind her, but instead of leaving pressed her eye to a gap between the boards where a splinter had broken away.

Elisabetha glanced around herself, as if unsure whether or not she was truly alone, then went to her bed and from beneath the pillow--_a child's hiding place_, thought Magda--withdrew a glass phial filled with a milky white substance. She then poured herself a goblet of wine and added a measure of the milky liquid, which she stirred in before swallowing the whole. The phial she restoppered and put back beneath the pillow.

Magda straightened up and went striding down the corridor, a satisfied smile on her face.


	3. Chapter 3

The soft knock at the door surprised Elisabetha. A light sleeper, it took little to jolt her awake.

"Who is it?"

"Father Karel, Lady Cronqvist."

"Oh, yes, Father. Just a moment, please."

She rose from the bed and lit a candle, then quickly donned a concealing robe over her nightdress. By the color of the sky it could not be more than an hour past sunset; the velvet blackness was still lightly tinged with midnight blue.

"Is anything wrong, Father?" Elisabetha asked as she opened the door.

"Yes, there is," he said, his eyes sad.

"Not Mathias!" she gasped, her hand going to her mouth. "They could not have joined in battle already!"

The priest shook his head, the wild growth of white beard making him look like a woodland hermit or anchorite.

"No, we have had no word of him. It is for you that I am concerned."

"For me?"

Karel advanced into the room, not so much forcing Elisabetha out of the way as exuding a kind of aura, a strength of purpose that made her step aside. It was the kind of determination that would brook no refusal, that let a man survive for weeks in the desert with scant food and drink. He needed only a hair-shirt and a staff in that moment to be Elisabetha's precise image of a Biblical prophet.

"I believe you know of what I speak."

Her eyes flicked guiltily to the bed. She'd always been horrid at lies and deception. It was one of the things, ironically, that Mathias said he loved about her.

"Yes, I can see that you do. Show me."

She made a game try at it.

"Father Karel, I don't know--"

"My lady, I do not say this lightly. You put your soul in peril with your lies!"

She hung her head.

"Yes, Father."

Elisabetha went to the bed and took the phial from beneath her pillow, then gave it to the priest.

"What is this potion?" he asked.

"It...it is..." Elisabetha's mind cast about frantically, trying to find an explanation that would shield Mathias, but it was too late.

"Lord Cronqvist gave this to you, did he not? No, my lady, do not answer. I can see the truth in your eyes, and I would spare you the telling of another lie. It is for your illness, is it not?"

"He said that it would help me regain my strength, so that I would be sure to recover by the time he returned."

Karel nodded sagely.

"I thought so. He loves you a great deal, does Lord Cronqvist, as is fitting between man and wife. But, the strength of that feeling affects his judgment. It makes him tamper with forces that are not man's to wield. Life and death lie within God's purview alone, Lady Cronqvist. It is His plan which guides the world, His will when we are gathered to Him."

He held up the potion.

"Things such as this are the devil's trap. They are man's attempt to defy God, to say unto Him, 'I, not you, shall dictate this.' Such matters alchemic are heretical, and with good reason. They imperil the soul for the sake of mastering the body--a pure defiance of God's order of things!"

Elisabetha shrank away from the fury in his voice, and at once Karel was all contrition.

"Forgive me, my lady. I did not mean that Lord Cronqvist's soul is lost. He has done this only out of love for you. When he comes to his senses, God's forgiveness would not be withheld. But you must not abet his sin. Put your faith in Christ, not in the arts of man, and let me destroy this devil's brew."

Elisabetha shuddered as she thought of the awful consequences that yawned before her. Were Mathias there, she did not think she could find the courage to refuse his offering, but so long as she did not have to say it to his face, she had the strength.

"Yes, Father, take it--for _his_ sake as well as mine. And thank you. _Thank_ you for coming when you did."

-X X X-

It had not been a glorious victory. No great songs would be sung of a campaign of ambush, of warfare from the shadows, of lures that left Sir Ferenc and his rebels surrounded by a ring of remorseless attackers that ground away at them as if they were an apple being peeled down to the core. There had not even been a climactic final battle between Lord Belmont and the heretic; a hurled axe from some nameless footsoldier's hand had struck Ferenc down before the slaughter was half over.

No, there was no glory in that kind of war. The King and Church would not care; their enemies had been destroyed. As for Mathias, he preferred it that way. Glorious battles usually meant glorious deaths, the deaths of friends and loved ones. _Sacrifice_ was not a word that inspired pleasant thoughts. To him, if a battle was worth fighting, it was worth winning.

Perhaps that was why he was such a good tactician.

No herald announced his triumphant return to Castle Cronqvist. The stablehand who took the reins of his travel-worn horse--he had pushed hard to get back to his home as soon as possible--would not meet his eyes. Nor would the servants who opened the door to the keep or accepted his outer garments.

Magda, as always, was the exception.

"Welcome home, my lord," she said throatily. "Would you care for refreshment after the rigors of your journey? It must be pleasant to return to the...comforts...of civilization after the privations of the battlefield."

She wasn't even bothering to disguise her double-entendres; her meaning was as plain as a camp-following strumpet's.

"I haven't time for this prattle," Mathias snapped. "I wish to see my wife."

Magda pressed herself against him.

"You needn't play the faithful husband any longer, my lord. She's been called to God at last. But if there is anything _I_ can do--"

He truly did not remember thrusting her from him, or rushing pell-mell through the castle, or bursting into Elisabetha's tower room to find her wan and wasted form stretched out on the bed. The atmosphere was choked with sickly-sweet incense, and Father Karel's deep voice chanted prayers as if they were played on some strange instrument.

_"Elisabetha!"_

Mathias flung himself beside the bed, seizing the corpse's limp hand between his.

"How can this be?"

He had not meant it as a question--or, at least not the kind of question that receives an answer--but the next thing he heard was the priest's voice.

"It is God's will."

Mathias raised his head. Father Karel was looking down at him with a deep sorrow in his eyes.

"It should not have happened."

No, not sorrow, Mathias realized as the priest nodded solemnly.

Pity.

"I understand what you truly mean, my lord. You wanted to save her."

Mathias's eyes widened.

"Her time had come, but you would have denied that with your alchemy," Karel continued. "You should not have acted so. You stood in defiance of God. Fortunately, your Elisabetha was a dutiful daughter of the Church, and she now rests with the angels in the bosom of the Lord."

"A...dutiful daughter?" Mathias asked, trying to make sense of it. A terrible suspicion was welling up within him, though, that he already knew the truth of it.

"She understood that life and death are mysteries which lie solely within God's purview. When the price she must pay for defying this sacred truth was explained to her, she set aside her willful ways and put her faith in God alone."

He spoke gently but firmly, the way a loving father would to a child. Somehow, this served to anger Mathias all the more. He was not a child. Grief burned in him like a cold flame, but now that flame had a target. Mathias rose to his feet, carefully setting his wife's dead hand on her breast.

"The mysteries of life and death are God's, Karel? Is that what you say?" he snapped out bitterly.

"That is what God says!"

"I have spent these past weeks with a sword in hand, dealing death at _my_ whim, and you encouraged, _demanded_ that I do that. Where were your high principles then?"

"It was the will of God that you fight against the heretics! That is why you are to do battle only in God's name!"

"How convenient," Mathias sneered. "The death of the heretical, the death of the good and just--all God seems to ask for is death!"

"My lord, you are overwrought, but this is blasphemy. Sacrilege! God's plan is not for mortals to know!"

"There _is_ no plan, Karel. Can't you see it? Your God is nothing but a butcher, delighting in pain and suffering. That is why He orders us to kill, but forbids us to save."

"Stop it, Lord Cronqvist!" Karel roared back at him. He was no longer the kindly father, but an angry man. But that was good. Mathias needed that, on some level. "Would you damn your immortal soul. God will curse you to eternal hellfire for your blasphemy!"

"God will curse me? No, rather will I curse God! He is no more than a jealous miser, hoarding his power. But I will be the master of Death. I will live forever, and I shall visit death, _and_ life, upon those I so choose!" _Master of Death. The Crimson Stone._ "I defy your God, Karel! He has betrayed me for the last time."

"These are the devil's words--"

Mathias sneered again.

"I am devil enough on my own, Karel, and I damn you and your God, who have murdered my Elisabetha."

A dagger dropped from a hidden wrist-sheath into his palm.

"It may have been God who did this, but He used your hands, Karel, your voice to speak His will."

The priest had no time to react. The blade found his heart with practiced ease. Even as the body slumped to the floor, Mathias was already turning to summon Magda. She entered the room with a wanton smile on her face, sure that Mathias had reconsidered. Was she so confident in her own charms, he wondered? Or was it only that her need for him, her craving that the world be as she wanted it, outweighed all reason in her own mind?

It did not matter.

The smile vanished at once as she saw the fallen body of the priest. Magda opened her mouth to scream in horror, but Mathias clapped one hand over her mouth to stifle it, seizing her slim wrists with the other.

"So you wanted to take Elisabetha's place, did you? Rejoice then, Magda, for I shall grant your wish. I shall make you her equal."

Did she realize what he meant, Mathias wondered, before he snapped her neck in a single quick movement?

It was the work of a moment to press the dagger into her hands and bloody them for effect. The story he would tell took more thought. Was she an assassin of the heretics, seeking revenge for their destruction? Better, perhaps, as a woman scorned unable to cope with being rejected. Heroically the priest had pushed Mathias aside, saving the lord's life at the cost of his own.

It would suffice. And the thought of making Karel a posthumous hero had an irony to it that appealed.

Besides that, he had work to do.

_The Crimson Stone._

It was he, Mathias, who would be the master of Death, the bringer of chaos.

"And let God and all His works tremble."


End file.
